Ghost Soldier (20 page)

The light turned red, and he slowed the van to a halt. “De Soto's men,” he said. “I remember.”

“You didn't believe me when I said they were ghosts—only Mom did.” I felt angry again.

He was silent as the light changed and he drove through the intersection. “Your mother's gone, Alexander.”

“She's coming back!” I practically screamed at him. “I made a vow that I'd wait for her!”

He slammed on the brakes and skidded to the side of the street. He threw the gearshift into Park and put his hands over his face. I didn't realize he was crying until he looked up. “Oh, Alexander,” he said softly, “she's not, no matter what you vowed. You can't make her come back just because you want her to, any more than I could. Your mother gets—intense about things. She keeps trying to find out why she was put here on earth, and when she thinks something's the reason, whatever that something is matters to her more than anything else. But it only lasts for a little while, and then she decides there has to be a more important cause, and she starts looking for it.”

“No,” I said. I didn't want to hear it, like I hadn't wanted to hear it when Dad told me he'd gotten a divorce. So what if Mom got intense about things?

Then I remembered the recorder. Once she had told me that she was here to make beautiful music. But she hadn't played it for months before she left. Maybe it was just one more thing she got bored with and abandoned.

“She was really intense about having a family,” Dad said, “and she cared so much about you that she was sure you were her reason for being. She loved you very much, Alexander. She still does, I'm sure. But that won't bring her back.”

I tried to shake my head. What about her flowers? I wanted to ask. But I knew the answer. The garden had almost died before she left. Dad helped me bring it back. The roses—the bushes I'd tended for her—she hadn't planted them. Dad was the one who dug the holes and heaved the bundles of wooden branches with their burlap-wrapped root balls into the dirt. Dad had planted them for me, because I'd been upset that the garden was dying.

“I know how much you love her,” he said. And I suddenly wondered—how much
did
I love her? As much as Rich loved his dead mother and his lost sister? Or as much as Carleton and Nicole loved their dead father? How much did I love the father who'd stayed by me?

Dad paused, squeezing the steering wheel and staring through the windshield. “I love Paige and I want to marry her,” he said quietly. “I want to take the job and move here and make Paige and her kids part of our team. But you're the most important person in my life, Alexander. If you won't—if you can't—if you totally hate the idea—then you and I will go back to Indiana.”

I stared out my window. My reflection had turned blurry, as if something was wrong with my eyes. Dad hadn't left me. If I was put on this earth to help the people I cared about, I couldn't spend all my life caring most for someone who had left. I turned in the seat, leaned against Dad's shoulder, and cried.

I felt his arms close around me.

“Remember how hard you worked to plant those rose bushes?” I asked some time later. Dad kept his hold on me.

I could feel his chest heave in a sigh. “Unfortunately, I do,” he said.

“Well, how'd you like to dig them up and move them to North Carolina?” I asked, ignoring the wrench of pain at what a final decision that would be. But it was the right decision, no matter how much it hurt. “I bet Carleton would love to help us dig in the dirt.”

Dad leaned back so he could look at me. “I bet he would.” He hugged me tighter. “Thank you, Alexander.”

I hugged him back and whispered, “I love you, too.”

He smiled, turning the van back into traffic. As we drove to the museum, I told him the whole story of stumbling onto Rich and finding Louise.

Chapter Eighteen

L
OUISE

When we pulled up at the museum, Dr. Seagraves and Mrs. Hambrick were standing on the sidewalk outside the porch. And they weren't alone—Nicole and Carleton had come along.

Carleton ran up to me. “We were waiting for you.”

I smiled. “I'm glad you did.” I turned to the others and took a deep breath. “Come on.”

When I opened the screen door into the humid hallway, Ms. Edwards looked up. She seemed surprised to see such a large group, then she recognized me and stood up. “Alexander! Welcome back.”

“Hi,” I told her. “This is my dad, and this is Mrs. Hambrick, Carleton and Nicole's mom. And this is Dr. Seagraves from Duke. I brought her to see the portrait in the locket.”

I didn't realize how much I'd been hoping Rich would be here until I turned the corner and felt the same warm air as in the front hall. I hadn't seen him since last night. But all I smelled was the mustiness of old things, with a hint of cedar. No oranges.

“See?” Nicole said. “The name's Chamblee, and the portrait looks just like you, the way Alexander said.”

“The resemblance is remarkable,” said Ms. Edwards, looking slowly from the miniature to Dr. Seagraves.

The professor just stood there, studying the image of a woman who had died in 1859—a face that could have been her reflection in a mirror except for her clothes and the way she wore her hair.

“Look at those eyes,” Mrs. Hambrick said. “They're exactly like yours.”

*   *   *

After holding Louise's note in my hands last night, I wanted one last look at the fragments that had been recovered. As soon as I eased the door into the back room open a crack, the smell of oranges and the cold air hit me.

Rich stood beside the table where the torn strip of wallpaper still lay between the glass plates. He didn't look up as I shut the door and hurried to him.

“I found her,” I told him. “I found out what happened! She was all right, Rich!”

He slowly raised his head, his eyes black holes of misery. One fist gripped his musket. “I couldn't help her. I wish I'd never left Two Stirrups for the Army. And I wish I'd never tried to go back. I'm sorry I ever dragged you into this.”

“But it worked out, Rich—I got rid of the Yankee, and I took her to where Amalie was waiting for her. First I had to get her to trust me—I even had to tell her I was from a different time, but she believed me because I convinced her I knew you and that you'd sent me.”

He reached through the glass plates, his hands opening and closing helplessly through the piece of wallpaper. “Don't you understand, Alexander? I can accept the fact that I died for my country—but I cannot accept the fate that befell my family afterward! Going back to Two Stirrups last night showed me that it was all for nothing. I couldn't save Louise or Amalie.”

“That's not true! You couldn't save Louise then—you were already a ghost! But you held Fort Stedman long enough to cover the retreat, and that saved a lot of lives. That counted for something! And your friend Noah was right—while you were standing fast at Fort Stedman, someone else was there for Louise and Amalie.”

“You were, but what happened to them had already happened. You can't change history,” he said bitterly.

“Not me,” I told him, “a man from South Carolina named Andrew Harkens. He'd been wounded at Spotsylvania and sent home on furlough, but he decided he was going to make a last stand against the Yankees at Petersburg. He passed through Wake County on his way to his regiment, and he stayed at Two Stirrups. And when your sisters learned that Sherman's men were on the way, he stayed to protect them. After the soldiers burned your farm, the three of them left together, because everything was falling apart.”

Rich stared at me. “How could you know?”

“I know it because Louise told me, and because I saw him take Louise and Amalie to the Bakers'. And you can believe it because Louise wrote it down for you.”

I unfolded the piece of paper I'd copied her note onto and spread it out next to the faded, bleached piece of wallpaper for Rich to read.

After he finished, Rich looked up, the lines in his face relaxing. “She waited for me,” he said.

I nodded. “And Mr. Harkens married her. I'm sure Louise knew you would have approved if you had been able to meet him.”

Rich looked puzzled. “Louise couldn't have told you about her marriage.”

“After they got married and realized you weren't coming, they went to Missouri,” I went on, adding Dr. Seagraves' story to what Louise had told me. “Louise had a daughter who grew up and had children. Louise's line didn't die out, Rich.”

“But how do you
know?
” he insisted.

“Because I met—” I began, when the door opened behind me.

“It's in here,” Ms. Edwards was saying. “Don't mind the cold. For some reason this room has been very chilly lately.” Then she saw me. “Alexander? What are you doing?”

“I just wanted another look at the note, Ms. Edwards,” I said quickly, reaching for my sheet of paper.

“And what's that?” She looked at it in surprise. “Is this supposed to be the rest of the note?” Ms. Edwards pulled it toward her before I had time to shove it into my pocket.

She looked up, smiling. “Did you make this up? It's quite good.”

“Actually, Alexander is very accurate about historical things, Ms. Edwards,” said Mrs. Hambrick. She looked back and forth from the fragments to my copy of Louise's letter. “Look at the spacing of the words—you can see the salutation, and part of ‘Sherman.' The other fragments fit the words you can read.”

Dr. Seagraves bent forward to see it, and Rich cried out, “Louise?”

Dr. Seagraves looked around, as if she'd felt something, and I suddenly wondered if she could hear him, or at least a distant whisper of his voice. “Is there a cold draft in here?” she asked.

“That's Alexander's ghost,” said Carleton. “Brrrrrr!”

“The cold,” Nicole explained.

“I remember,” Mrs. Hambrick said, looking thoughtfully at me.

“Louise was your—what?—great-grandmother, Dr. Seagraves?” I asked. “Is that right?”

“Apparently,” Dr. Seagraves said. “What was her brother's name? Richeson?”

“Richeson Francis Chamblee,” I told her, and she looked up in surprise. “For Francis Scott Key,” I added, but she still looked amazed.

“I'd say that clinches it,” said Mrs. Hambrick. “I don't think you've ever heard Dr. Seagraves' full name, Alexander.”

Dr. Seagraves turned her black eyes on me. “My first name is Louise,” she said, “and my middle name is Frances. My grandmother was named Frances Louise. The names have been passed on.”

Rich had tears in his eyes. “Louise named her baby after me.”

“I don't know how to begin to thank you, Alexander,” Dr. Seagraves said. “You found my great-grandmother for me.”

“I'm not sure how you came up with this, Alexander, but may I make a copy to keep?” asked Ms. Edwards. “I know there's no historical proof that the note actually said anything like this…” Her voice trailed off.

“But sometimes you just know something is true without having any proof,” Mrs. Hambrick finished for her.

Ms. Edwards looked at Dr. Seagraves. “Well, your resemblance to the portrait is certainly proof that there's something to this story!”

“Could you make me a copy also?” asked Dr. Seagraves.

As they walked to a copier machine in the far corner, Rich said quietly, “Thank you, Alexander. Thank you for letting me see Louise's great-granddaughter. Waiting all these years, not knowing—standing fast at Fort Stedman—it
was
all worth it.”

I looked across at Mrs. Hambrick, a little ways behind Dr. Seagraves at the copier. Dad was standing next to her, holding her hand and smiling. Rich had been right—Mom hadn't left because of me. She'd left because of her own problems. I had to accept that I couldn't change that. All I could do was love her anyway and get on with my life. “You're welcome,” I told Rich and meant it. “Helping you was worth it for me, too.”

Carleton came up to me. “Are you talking to your ghost? Is he haunting you now?”

I smiled at Rich over Carleton's head. “I don't think he's going to haunt anybody anymore,” I said to Carleton. “I tell you what—how would you like to help me plant rose bushes in your yard? You'd get to dig up lots of dirt.”

Carleton beamed. “I can dig a trench!” Then he asked, “Will there be more ghosts in the yard?”

I grinned. “You never can tell.”

Carleton ran over to tell his mother about the rose bushes.

When I looked up, Rich was gone.

“Good-bye, Richeson Francis Chamblee,” I whispered. “Trust me. You stood fast—and it counted for a lot.”

Then I realized that Mrs. Hambrick and my dad were beside me, still holding hands. “Thank you, Alexander,” she said, very softly.

“Oh, great,” I heard Nicole sighing behind her. “Now I get stuck with two kid brothers.” But she sounded almost pleased at the idea.

Dad pointed to my “Keep the Past Alive!” shirt. “I think we should get a set,” he said, “for the whole family.”

It sounded strange—the whole family. Was I ready for that? I took my copy of Louise's letter back from Ms. Edwards and folded it carefully. I wanted to keep it so that I could always remember the girl who wrote those words and the boy she'd left them for—a family that wanted to hang on to each other, no matter what. But I knew now the past was a pattern that had already grown and flowered. What mattered was the way I planted and tended the patterns that would shape my future. I glanced down at the remnants of Louise's note under the glass, then up at Dad and Mrs. Hambrick, still standing close to each other. I was finally ready to start growing whatever new patterns the future had in store for me.